Anti-semitism thread: onwards from 2023

I guarantee you if you had white supremicists marching on a college campus screaming at black students huddled in a library in the US the motherfucking shit would hit the fan, and for good reason. It would be all you'd hear about for weeks. There would be BLM marches across the country again. I'm not saying authorities or those in power would necessarily be responsive but people would care!

This isn''t the synagogue I grew up in, but it's down the street and I spent many hours of my childhood hanging out there. My parents still live in Albany most of the year. gift link:

Man Is Arrested After Firing Gun Near Albany Synagogue

One thing I have learned in the past two months is that while I become more emotional as I get older on the superficial level of e.g. crying in movies, I also become more dispassionate in how I form my beliefs about things. Which is to say, this incident is horrifying and literally hits close to home, but I just immediately classify it as an outlier from which I don't jump to conclusions or feel triggered to react. As I wrote about a month or so ago on one of the other threads, my wife is in the (non-clergy) leadership of our synagogue and for the past couple weeks she is drowning in demands from the more law-and-order/paranoid faction of our community to have an armed guard at the synagogue. While I recognize that there is value in that as a deterrent, I feel completely clear-eyed that that choice would be complicit in a descent towards a way of life -- paranoia, distrust of others, belief that conflict and tribalism will win out over basic human decency -- that I don't ascribe to. But then shit like this happens and that position just gets harder and harder to defend to the people who don't see it that way. Sigh.

my synagogue has had security (not sure if armed) during the high holidays as long as i can remember. there have never been any anti-semitic attacks or anything to prompt this, i think it was prompted by violence in israel

Here's the local reporting: https://www.timesunion.com/news/article/mufid-fawaz-alkhader-heads-court-temple-israel-18541327.php

this happened in the Bay Area a few years ago: https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/man-with-history-of-mental-illness-convicted-of-threatening-san-francisco-synagogue/

Nothing happened to this guy when he did it in Berkeley because people here dismiss threats by the mentally ill. He finally had to threaten an SF synagog for anything to happen to him.

The Jewish Community Center in SF has always required trunk checks when you park in their garage and have major amounts of security when you enter. It's paranoid to a degree but yeah, shit like this happens and then you think "well, alright".

I guarantee you if you had white supremicists marching on a college campus screaming at black students huddled in a library in the US the motherfucking shit would hit the fan, and for good reason. It would be all you'd hear about for weeks. There would be BLM marches across the country again. I'm not saying authorities or those in power would necessarily be responsive but people would care!

our synagogue doors lock automatically, and since 10/7 we have a rotating group of volunteer congregants who stand by the door on Saturday mornings to greet (read: screen) people as they walk in.

High holidays is common to have that level of security, it's inherently a high profile time. To do it regularly feels pretty different, especially outside a big city (I'm in Western Mass).

Who organised the BLM protests? Black people, many of whom have since died in mysterious circumstances. This is a version of the argument made about battered women’s shelters - why don’t they exist for men - when the answer is always the same: the group that wanted them had to push for them themselves.

I think I mentioned before but maybe not on here, I was travelling through some random bit of Essex years ago and passed a Jewish cemetery. It had high gates, barbed wire, what looked like a guard’s office. I’d never seen anything like it. I texted a friend of mine who’s local and Jewish to ask about it, and I was like, is this a special cemetery? and she was like, no, that’s just what they’re like. I found the unsaid, that this is how people are forced to live so unspeakably awful.

There is a separate community security force I would see when I lived in London, called Shomrim, which is dedicated to this sort of protection and the CST (Community Services Trust) also covers synagogues. There is an old synagogue near me that’s in use and I take pictures of churches and such often so I was outside looking at the stone and the windows and I’d been there maybe ten seconds when I saw the CST sign, warning me that I was being filmed. I knew I was doing nothing wrong, but the notion of having to live in such fear - unspeakable.

But the question, Josh, is would you hesitate for a second to send your own kid to any of those colleges? I wouldn't.

No, but I think that's because Jews are so attuned to a baseline level of discomfort that many understand there is no definitive "safe" space, with an irony being the closest many may feel to such a thing (synagogue, say, or Hillel or similar concentrations of Jews) just emphasizes your bullseye status, not least because imo Jews are not often perceived as a protected class (as the man said, Jews don't count). I do know a vibrant Jewish community was important to my older daughter when she was applying to school, and it's important to my younger daughter as well. But it's just another stress inducing aspect of being stuck in the middle when, say, you're interested in Penn because their bachelor of nursing program is well regarded but slightly less competitive to get into than some other schools, but then you see all this shit on the news (legit or no) that make you question your decisions and goals.

There is so much we just look beyond - meetings with the FBI at our synagogue, for example (which in our case has apparently been happening), extra security at cemeteries (!) - because it's expected by us. But it's also mostly invisible to the public at large, because why wouldn't it be? I know this is true for other groups as well, but there is literally no place on earth where Jews are anything more than a tiny minority except ... well, you know. Hence the baseline level of discomfort.

imo Jews are not often perceived as a protected class (as the man said, Jews don't count).

yeah this is the heart of the issue in a lot of ways I think. These days, jews in the US are considered white. That's a relatively recent development though and I think we all know that whiteness is something that is conferred on groups of people, and can also be taken away. But right now, US culture largely considers Jews white; and so when Jews are targeted, as in the above situation at Cooper Union, I think lots of people (on the left, particularly) shrug and feel they can take it, or worse, deserve it.

(complicated by the fact that 'jews' is both an ethnicity and an religion and there are certainly plenty of people who identify as 'jewish' because of their religion but are, in fact, ethnically not jewish)

Black Jews among others probably would be confused to hear they are considered white

Don’t really get your deployment of scare quotes around religiously Jewish contrasted with the “fact” of being ethnically Jewish either, wanna unpack for me

oh it wasn't scare quotes, I simply mean people use the word jews and jewish to describe both ethnically jewish people and those who converted to judaism who come from different ethnicities. there was no implication in the usage of the quote other than to offset the word / term itself

https://www.economist.com/united-states/2023/12/07/one-in-five-young-americans-think-the-holocaust-is-a-myth

20% of 18-29 year old Americans think the holocaust is a myth is the headline here, but

https://d3nkl3psvxxpe9.cloudfront.net/documents/econTabReport_tT4jyzG.pdf#page=83

digging in shows

20% of 18-29 year old Americans think Jews have too much power in America

younger people are much more likely to hold both these views than older people
liberals are more likely believe both these things than conservatives
biden voters are more likely believe both these things than Trump voters
Democrats are more likely to believe these things than republicans

I realize there's overlap with the last 3 categories, but still thought it noteworthy the patten repeated

sorry that second one should be "28% of 18-29 year old Americans think Jews have too much power in America"

and urban voters are more likely than suburban voters who are more likely than rural voters - to follow the pattern

I blame tik tok

Here's the local reporting: https://www.timesunion.com/news/article/mufid-fawaz-alkhader-heads-court-temple-israel-18541327.php

― Lavator Shemmelpennick, Friday, December 8, 2023 8:30 AM bookmarkflaglink

So this is a context where the shooter yelling "Free Palestine" turned into the conduct of discharging a shotgun outside a synagogue. Outlier. But on the rise.

I don't know if this Columbia incident from October was widely reported:

https://www.columbiaspectator.com/news/2023/10/16/former-student-faces-hate-crime-charges-from-da-granted-supervised-release-after-allegedly-assaulting-general-studies-student/

I was just watching videos of people with megaphones interrupting students trying to attend lectures at Harvard on 11/29/23.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fz0IU6dJSNI

The question under Title VI - is does this create a hostile environment with disparate impact on certain students.

And does this help the situation in Gaza somehow? It just seems to play into cynical hands while also making Jewish students and Muslim students uncomfortable.

anyway I'm not sure what to make of the 20% of that demographic thinking the holocaust is a myth. I glibly blamed tiktok but it's obviously a deeper problem. I have a hard time believing the holocaust is not being taught in schools; my son is a senior and they certainly covered it in world history when he was in 10th grade (they didn't cover the Armenian genocide though.. I wonder what percentage of that demographic is even aware that was a thing at all?). So is it being taught, and then unlearned due to internet propaganda? The pattern on the final three elements is disturbing and I think might bring to light antisemitism in the progressive left. But I dunno.

Keep in mind those reported studies that find some non-zero percentage of students can't (for example) find America on the map, and that's the sort of learning that doesn't even face the headwinds of concerted propaganda efforts.

Conversation in one of the other threads about I/P mentioned American young people not knowing about/denying the Holocaust:

On the subject of 20% of American children not knowing about/denying the Holocaust - you have to question their education. It’s something I learned about in school like everyone does, though I think many of the worst details aren’t taught to children. I remember doing a history project when I was nine which was a newspaper about the defeat of Hitler. I wonder how much damage has been done by history being an elective subject at the stage when you are learning a lot more detail, of how to contextualise events, the details of said events.

To me, such a possibility would never cross my mind because I knew it happened - we learned about it, there are photos. I remember seeing a video which showed the room with the shoes at Auschwitz. To learn about history you are learning about events that you have never personally witnessed, but which have occurred. If you don’t choose to continue learning history in school, you might never learn about how to establish which things are true, or why it’s worth doing so.

I worry that increasing authoritarianism in governments across the world leads people in search of their own information to charlatans and monsters who dilute their truth with conspiracism. There is also a problem with discerning which sources are accurate and real - if you are at all left wing living in the UK, you know that the BBC runs cover for the government. This is a problem - the BBC is lying to you about stuff that you can see, so why could they be trusted on anything? You would always see this on ukpol Twitter, a certain seam of media-illiterate people falling for conspiracies all over the place because in their desperation to find information sources that told them what they saw was true, they were more inclined to believe less credible sources than before. Tl;dr if you fall for one thing you are likely to fall for others.

Needless to say, this is bad.

But then Germany supposedly has educated its children on the Holocaust and the country’s role in it, and the country is still riddled with Neo-Nazis. So it can’t just be as simple as education, but it would certainly be something. I can’t speak to how it is in America since I don’t know anything about the curriculum or what freedom schools have to teach it as they do, but I would be really surprised if it wasn’t at least a factor.

It’s something I learned about in school like everyone does

Nope.

Really? What did you learn about? Not even the Kindertransport?

I saw that too, and with younger people more likely than older to think the holocaust is a myth that does point towards a change in education. But the fact the same pattern is followed with liberals more likely than conservatives, Biden voters more likely than Trump voters, and Democrats more likely than Republicans, I don't know if education is necessarily the whole story here

And the 28% thinking Jews have too much power, this feels more of an active opinion than the holocaust opinion, which could be a more passive one due to a lack of education

I asked my 17 1/2 year old what he thought about it and his immediate response was the same as mine when I heard it: "conspiracy morons read about things on twitter and believe it"

(FWIW he had plenty of holocaust info in world history, but we live in Berkeley where, despite a lot of fucked up shit about our school district, I'm convinced he got a solid education)

Really? What did you learn about? Not even the Kindertransport?

Nothing at all. Nothing about World War II in general.

where were you located?

(and when I guess)

Learned a lot about Mao and the China though for some reason! And the Russian revolution!

China, not the China.

the China was Human League's b-side to the Lebanon

20% of American children not knowing about/denying the Holocaust

Not children. Americans 18-29. Voters.

https://archive.ph/2023.12.09-072959/https://www.economist.com/united-states/2023/12/07/one-in-five-young-americans-think-the-holocaust-is-a-myth

Another 30% "don't know" if the Holocaust is a myth.

As I said this on the USpol thread a while back, the lesson we should have all learned is to pay attention to wackadoos like Trump and Marjorie Taylor Green and watch for trends. There is a difference between some vile outlier data point on social media and when it gains momentum and becomes mainstream.

A lot of people dismissed Trump and MTG out of hand on the merits of their views. Now look who is running the House and leading the polls.

my UK holocaust education was probably better than average with a lot of focus on the brutality - which was effective at burning the horror into our brains - but there was little to nothing about the context or history, and way too much crowing about how "we" stopped it (I assume every allied country does this shit). it was a bad thing that happened but the badness is then taken to somehow justify whatever the current political situation is in a very roundabout way. if you don't like the political situation and are willing to entertain antisemitism then I suppose the lack of context could make denial easier to consider

xps Germany has educated its children to believe that their national redemption will come through support for Israel and Jewish forgiveness which is awful in all kinds of directions

I haven't read this piece since it came out but I remember it being a much needed shot of cold water
https://www.zeit.de/kultur/2021-05/judaism-antisemitism-germany-israel-bds-fabian-wolff-essay-english

too much crowing about how "we" stopped it

I don't remember learning about the Holocaust in school so much as in popular culture at the time.

If the US was stopping the Holocaust I don't think that vast majority of American civilians or soldiers inteneded that or knew they were stopping any kind of mass extermination program at the time because they were not even aware.

My very ahistorical understanding is that the U.S. entered the war becaue Pearl Harbor was bombed. There was a general awareness of mistreatment of Jewish people in Europe but I thought the evidence of death camps did not come out in America until after the war ended.

Feel free to correct this ofc

(when I say "mass extermination program" I refer to Holocaust specifically, not all the people the US and allies killed including mass atrocities in Japan)

Not children. Americans 18-29. Voters.

notably, I found out that poll had a sample size of 200 people so I'm not sure it's representative

I don't know how accurate that YouGov poll is but one element here is that the Holocaust is now history for an 18-year old and is subject to the same problems as expecting any normal young person to know much about history. Here at ILX our parents or grandparents lived through the war, potentially fought in the war (or experienced the Holocaust itself) - it wasn't really part of the past, it was an element in the lives of people we interacted with regularly.

Sadly these kind of social media driven antisemitic sentiment and conspiracies are on the American left or "left" as well. I think it's been a forbidden topic for far too long.

I have appreciated ilxor Left's consistent acknowledgement that some antisemitism exists when discussing the left.

the left has been antisemitic for as long as there has been a left (of course so has the right and the right has been worse but why do I feel the need to say this) - it's very difficult to talk about it without being perceived as having some sort of agenda

"Learned a lot about Mao and the China though for some reason!"

same here, I had a history teacher who was a Marxism Today reader and he went heavy on The Long March! Never did anything about the holocaust in history. The teacher who talked the most about the holocaust was an RE one, Father Myers, who had a Jesuit missionary background and was quietly scathing when he had to play some Catholic anti-abortion propaganda video to us 13/14 yr olds.

I received what I realize now is a very comprehensive education about the Holocaust, but I also grew up and went to some of elementary and middle grades in Philadelphia’s suburbs, which have an enormous Jewish population.

I didn't do history, I did "Modern Studies", I was the only one actually interested in the subject though, the rest of the class consisted of wasters who were only there because they didn't want to do History or Geography. Our teacher was very right wing, but he was fucking great though, definitely my favourite teacher! A really interesting person.

Now wondering if it was strange that I had a teacher who taught us about Agent Orange and showed us pictures of the Viet Cong tunnels when I was eight.

There is a very good book(let) about the manifestations of antisemitism in left wing spaces. The author shared it online before his death and it is freely and legally available here. I know his daughter a little bit - she is a wonderful person.

Americans 18-29. Voters.

It strikes me that voters in this cohort have grown up in a world where the digital manipulation of media, elaborate conspiracy theories, and the saturation of the internet with falsehoods and propaganda are taken for granted, and critiques of colonialism/imperialism that undermine confidence in the reliability of historical records have become popular in academia. iow, their sense of what is believable beyond the limits of their personal experience has become subject to much higher levels of doubt and cynicism than previous generations.

Not sure where this goes - but on the subject of sources, I learned about The Forward (forward.com) from posts on ilx.

Then learned this past Thanksgiving that my grandfather, an old time progressive socialist, used to read the newspaper version of The Forward in Yiddish every night.

My hometown is a suburb with a significant Jewish population, where I went to the same schools as my mum did, with many of the children of her Jewish classmates. She said that in the 1950s and early ‘60s when she was a schoolkid, the Holocaust was only talked about in hushed ways because it was so close, and so painful to the survivors. But they knew something unforgivably terrible had happened.

By the time I got to school, we had Anne Frank in the curriculum and the Holocaust miniseries on TV. We also had a World Religions curriculum developed by two history teachers because kids were being antisemitic about Jewish kids getting extra days off school, so the adults in the room were like: here’s why, and it’s a unit this semester. After Mom’s time but before mine, we had people’s aunties and uncles who were camp survivors come to assembly, tell the story, explain and show their tattoos.

I feel so fortunate to have grown up there.